Chapter Twenty-Nine
Things had gone to high hell in a matter of moments. The rain was coming down hard, soaking through clothes in seconds, and everyone was thankful for waterproof boots. They'd finally found the entrance to the tunnel system that had long since stopped being used for smuggling. Their existence was known, but it was just a matter of which part were Tres and Esther in.
It had all started a month ago, when Abel had returned from his mission, exhausted, hungry, in desperate need of some tea and sleep. The Vatican was in a state that was for sure. Abel didn't think he had ever seen Caterina so worried. It might not have been such a big deal, though when Caterina told him of Tres and Esther's mission, as well as Tres's humanization and then their disappearance? That was enough to concern him.
Caterina had said they'd been receiving small, weak signals from somewhere near Letetia, encoded messages that Professor Wordsmith had no trouble deciphering. It was, after all, his code. This fact led Wordsmith to believe he knew exactly who was sending the messages, someone with thorough knowledge of the Vatican and AX, as well as someone familiar with Professor Wordsmith's programming.
It wasn't a long list. Only one person was on it: Tres Iqus.
So Tres was sending them distress calls, the same one every hour, for the past several days. They were rather short, only that Tres and Esther had been kidnapped by Methuselah and were being held in smuggler tunnels under the Kingdom of Franc.
That Father Abel should arrive when he did was a stroke of good luck.
With only a day of rest to go on, Abel rounded up Father Leon (who was just as interested in protecting Esther as he was), Professor Wordsmith (who got them the Iron Maiden) he was off to the Kingdom of Franc in under a week.
It was a nail biting few hours. The Iron Maiden could only go so fast, but that didn't stop them from asking Sister Kate if "this thing could go any faster." She adamantly maintained that they could start walking for all she cared, but with Sister Esther and Father Tres's lives hanging in the balance, she was more than willing to deal with their grumbling until they reached Letetia.
Letetia was exactly how Lady Caterina had described it. Small, hopefully growing and free of rain. Iron Maiden lowered her ropes and Abel and Leon went into the town to investigate. The first place they went was the town's church, which was right in the middle of the city. Once there, Bishop Linda, who hardly blinked at Abel's request for thirteen sugar lumps in his tea, told them, tearfully, of the day of their disappearance, as well as the young girl that had went missing at the same time, the vampire attack and Esther pursuing them. She handed them Tres's guns, telling them that they'd sent out search parties as far as the next towns but had found nothing, no evidence of them.
Abel smiled at her, calmed her down, assuring her, just as much as himself, that they would be found.
Sister Kate had been presented with the signal Tres had been sending for a week now, and she was working towards locating the exact source of the distress call. She hadn't been able to pinpoint it exactly, and she had managed to find age old maps of the tunnel systems below Franc. That they were so expansive disheartened them all, but Professor Wordsmith tried to keep the mood light.
There were four entrances spread over several miles of open fields. The ones along the coast weren't worth looking into. But with several copies of the maps of the tunnels, Father Leon and Father Nightroad went in headfirst into the dark, weapons in hand. There was no way to tell if the vampires that had taken Tres and Esther were still here, in the caves, but it was better than scouring the world blindly with no leads at all.
They had found the young girl with Esther, in the same cell and chained to the wall. Cora, was her name, and she was a mute. Father Abel had been ready to take her and Esther out of the tunnels altogether, because their presence and the abrupt entry without the proper passcode had set of a self-destruction countdown. A purge. Gas inside pipes hidden within the walls and support beams were going to blow at the end of the countdown, and the entire thing was going to collapse. They didn't have any more time to search for Tres.
He would get Esther and Cora out first, and then he would return and make one last, desperate attempt to find Tres before the tunnels collapsed. Esther was hysterical. She barely looked like herself. Pale, thin. She didn't know where Tres was, and neither did he, but she was adamant that she wouldn't leave until he was found. Abel took Cora out, meeting Father Leon halfway out and handing her off. Then he went back in to try and help Esther find the Gunslinger.
And when he was, Abel wasn't sure there as anything worth saving there.
Tres looked dead, he seemed dead in every aspect. He wasn't moving, he didn't respond to anything Professor Wordsmith did. His eyes were open, in a blank stare at the sky. He didn't blink against the rain. It was unnerving to see him like this.
Cora was returned to Letetia where the doctor promised to look after her. Esther was put into the care of Sister Kate once they returned to Iron Maiden, since she had collapsed almost as soon as she had gotten out of the tunnels, and Professor Wordsmith had locked himself away in a room with Tres.
This wasn't normal, any of it. There had been no sign of the Methuselah within the tunnels, or anywhere within a thirty mile radius of where they found the entrance. After Leon took Cora to Letetia, he made sure to give the area a once over in search of the "bastards that hurt my girl". He assured he'd be back in Rome in no time at all to watch after her.
This thing with Tres… Something was wrong with Tres. Something seriously wrong with him. These Methuselah had done something to him that even Professor Wordsmith couldn't identify. The scans showed that Tres was awake and active. But he didn't move or react to anything William did. By the scans, Tres should be up and talking to them, telling them about what happened.
But instead, he just… laid there. Dead. Numb to the world.
And no one knew why, or how. After days of scans and research, everything showed that Tres was fine. 100% operational. There was no reason for him to be like this, nothing Professor Wordsmith could find that, anyway.
Whatever these Methuselah had done, they had ruined the Gunslinger.
A/N: Ha ha… hey guys, long time, no see. Really didn't mean to make you all wait this long, I won't make any excuses, and even if I did all my excuses are really personal anyway. Thank you guys for sticking around with this story.
All I can tell you guys right now about my plans with this story is that it's about to get real. Shit's about to hit the fan. It's all getting ready to climax. As for Bishop Linda, I can't promise we'll see her again. Or little Cora. But you all probably won't be too upset about that. I hope. And we won't be coming back to Letetia for a long time.
Thanks again, guys.
Peace.
